Comments on: Rogers et al pissed at CTV “Save Local Television” campaign

By: Marlon

Marlon — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:00:00 +0000

All the cable and satellite companies pay royalties (lots and lots of them with money flowing to OTA broadcasters) under the Retransmission Tariff made and administered by the Copyright Board of Canada pursuant to the Copyright Act. Those royalties clear the retransmission by cable and satellite of ALL content (Canadian and US) on ALL over-the-air signals. That is, carriage of the signals is done entirely within the law.

There is no case whatsoever for piracy and, in fact, there is a strong case that cable and satellite already pay a fee for these signals under the tariff and that Fee-For-Carriage is actually a "double dip".

As others have rightly pointed out, cable and satellite companies are, in fact, required by law to carry the OTA services (BDU Regulations, s. 17). That's probably the primary reason why Fee-For-Carriage is so wrong.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 25 May 2009 16:12:31 +0000

You may find this of interest:

http://uninflectedimages.blogspot.com/2009/05/local-tv-what-are-we-saving-exactly.html

By: Shawn Peterson

Shawn Peterson — Mon, 25 May 2009 02:14:18 +0000

With all the revenues CTV gets from the simultaneous substitutions of American programs (tens of millions of dollars per year), they are still asking for yet more money?

How poorly managed is this company exactly?

By: Lewis

Lewis — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:55:05 +0000

Steve, I saw you there at CTV today taking pictures in the studio. I found it was pretty cool that they were offering the tour, but I felt that it was kind of irrelevant as it had almost nothing to do with "Saving local TV", except the postcard signing towards end. If they're running low on money, why were they serving free drinks at the end? What ever happened to "Learn about the issues affecting local TV?"

By: Tv Dude

Tv Dude — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:14:35 +0000

Save local CTV? We have no local TV on channel 12! We have a newscast, that is all. The hypocrisy is stunning! CTV has completely removed any local identity from its stations, right down to the call letters. Even this whole campaign is centralized and lacks any "local" input. I'm not about to defend the cable companies, but CTV is a private entity. They are acting as if they are doing this because they really care about local programming. That is a huge pile of crapola. They really must think that we are all stupid. I hope that people don't buy this stuff. CTV deserves no sympathy.

By: Fagstein

Fagstein — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:46:00 +0000

No, silly, that cash is sent directly to Toronto.

By: Horonymous

Horonymous — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:00:03 +0000

Please be sure to take the picture of the secret room full of cash that CTV has made over the last 4+ decades on your visit to CFCF today.